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ARE YOU DAVE GORMAN? by Dave Gorman & Danny Wallace: comedy geniuses

I've been reading Are you Dave Gorman? by Danny Wallace and Dave Gorman. I saw a BBC show they made together back in the spring of 2001 (re-shown on BBC2 in June 2002) and really enjoyed it. It was called The Dave Gorman Collection and it told the unlikely tale of how they had a bet about meeting 54 other people called Dave Gorman. Thus when the book of their strange story came out in 2001, I made my brother buy it for me for Christmas.
It looked like this:
• Top Right, the front with Dave Gorman.
• Below, the back with Danny Wallace.
• Below that: The new front cover with Dave and Danny.
• Below that, W.H.Smith's poster for the new-look book.
...and it's very funny. For more info about their adventures, I suggest you visit one of the following sites:
After seeing Dave do his Better World stage show in Aylesbury I sent him the following e-mail:

----- Original Message -----
From: PAULS0069
To: Hidden-to-avoid-spam@dave-also-hidden-to-avoid-fooking-spam-gorman.com
Sent: Saturday, January 26, 2002 9:52 PM
Subject: Aylesbury Show no-show

Hi Dave.

I was at the Better World show you did in Aylesbury on the 22nd and really enjoyed it. I laughed in all the right places, which is a good sign I think.

Afterwards I hung about, hoping to get you to autograph my copy of AYDG? but was dragged off by my cold ex-girlfriend because she wanted to get to bed. Her bed, not mine. Without me. Anyway, it means I missed the opportunity to have me picture taken with you in a 'meeting a Dave Gorman' style, which was a disappointment. And all because you were probably unwinding in the lavish (i.e. like a lav) artistes changing rooms which I know the Civic Centre boasts.

So, can you take the attached scan of the frontispiece of AYDG? (I've voted for you on the WH.Smiths site by the way. I felt a bit guilty about it afterwards. I mean, I've not read any of the other travel books listed and they could all be better than yours. I just don't know) and sign it for me. You could either print it, sign it, scan it in and send it back, or if that sounds like too much hard work in this instant-gratification age of electronics, just load it into any handy paint-n-draw application your Mac has (and I'm guessing by your sideburns you have an Apple) to digitally sign it and mail it.

It'd be really appreciated. I'll be the envy of all the other docu-comedian signature collectors I know.

Keep up the good work

Paul Smith

Click here for the front page of ARE YOU DAVE GORMAN? It's been scanned, e-mailed, printed, signed, scanned, e-mailed and posted onto the Internet. I know of no other frontispiece this has ever happened to. A few days later, he replied:

Paul,

hope the attached picture is okay. Both Dan and I have signed it.

You were wrong about the Mac.

cheers,

Dave

Which just goes to show what a top bloke he is. And Danny too, 'course.

In June 2002 I went to watch Dave record his new series about matters zodiacal at TV Centre, but things didn't go 100% to plan...

Subj: Re: Next weeks shows.... and talking comedy
Date: 23/06/02 13:27:20 GMT Daylight Time
From: PAULS0069
To: Hidden-to-avoid-spam@dave-also-hidden-to-avoid-fooking-spam-gorman.com
File: unhappy-piz74.ZIP (130678 bytes) DL Time (115200 bps): sub 1 minute

Hi Dave

I came to see your recording at TV Centre on Tuesday and I'd like to say how much I enjoyed the show.

That is, I'd like to, but I can't. Even though I'd taken the day off work to be there and my little gang had arrived in what I thought was plenty of time (about 6.15) we were right at the front of the queue when a man with a clipboard told us all the seats had gone. Gutted? I felt like that bloke in Hannibal.

Sure, we were offered priority tickets to see the ALL NEW Harry Hill show on another night, but frankly I have quite enough Badgers in my life already.

So, instead we took the tube back into town, had a consolation pizza in Leicester Square (picture link), met some happy Koreans, speculated on all the models who seem to have made their home in Soho and then went for a walk by the river (pic link).

Fun though this was, all in all I'd rather have seen you doing your docucomedy thing. I'd paid for my Judith, my ex's train ticket (It was her birthday on Friday) and dragged my very poor friend Gavin along too. I felt guilty that I'd promised them an evening of entertainment and excitement and delivered nothing but disappointment. And pizza.

Please let me know if and when you're recording or have a live act again, as I hope my luck with seating allocations may have changed for the better,

Regards,

Paul Smith

Dave replied:

Sorry. if you're on the mailing list, you will of course hear about new projects.

I hope the pizza was good.

Dave

So I said:

Thanks for being sorry Dave, I know it's not your fault. But, you know, I was disappointed and all that, and I don't have the e-mail addresses of the people in front of me in the queue, or of the man with the clipboard. So you get the grief. So now I'm sorry back.

I look forward to your future projects and the rebroadcast of The DG Collection. I'll have a blank video cassette ready this time.

The pizza was satisfactory, and surprisingly reasonable for a central London location.

I hope you're now having a well deserved rest. I'm trying to after cycling the 56 miles from London to Brighton last weekend for The British Heart Foundation and knackering myself [ PAGE ]. In a way you're to blame for that too. I'm not a naturally charitable person, but at the end of your Better World show you said, in essence: "Do things for charity. It'll make the world better". So when the opportunity to take part came up, I had your words in mind and took it. Maybe my efforts (£132 raised) will, in some small way, make the world a better place. So no apology sort this time.

The book in pictures:
The front cover, featuring Mr Gorman. Click it to see a bigger vesion. The back cover, featuring Mr Wallace The new front cover, featuring Mr Gorman and Mr Wallace. Click it to see a bigger vesion, Mrs. The poster used to promote the 'Are You Dave Gorman?' book by W.H.Smith. I like it. Click it to see a bigger version.

Gormanesque stuff:
If you'd like your very own STOP ME IF YOU'RE A DAVE GORMAN t-shirt, you'll need to click here to visit my 'T-Shirt Shop' page. Click here to see a larger version of this 'non-obsessive' picture. Click here to visit Dave's own web site. It's not as good as mine, but it's nice. The book features Danny's Norwegian girlfriend Hanne. Although Hanne.com has nothing to do with her, I like it, so here's a link. :-)

Fresh Gorman fun:
Click here to see a larger version of my treasured 'Dave whacked my Google' badge. Click here to see a larger version of the cover of Dave's new Google Whack Adventure book.

Meet Dave Gorman:
Click here to see a larger version of Dave signing Are You Dave Gorman for me. Click here to see a larger version of Dave looking delighted to meet me. ;) Cyber-meet Dave yourself by clicking here.

Kind regards,

Paul Smith

And that was that.

Update: Christmas 2002.
Having been so delighted with the copy of the AYDG? book I received from my brother last year, I bought lots for my friends and family. I hope they're pleased with them. Thus the picture of me holding three copies, above right, isn't a sad portrait of an obsessive fan, which I appreciate is how it could otherwise appear. Rather, it is that of a generous person of good taste. Click the thumbnail image to see a larger version.
Update: November 2003.
Watch in mute horror as I kill a googlewhack stone dead: pterodactyl shelta was one, but now it isn't. The same goes for shambolic ambergris and sycophant narwal. It's true, my limitless evil knows no bounds. Here's one I hope will become a googlewhack: ambergris procrastinate paradiddle colostomy 'the turning of the screw' You're confused? You don't know what a googlewhack is? Visit www.GoogleWhack.com to find out about them.
So what has this got to do with Dave Gorman? Well, at the back-end of 2002 he got drawn into an adventure involving them. In November 2003 he came to Aylesbury to tell us all about it, which seemed to be great therapy for him. His little secret is safe with me.
I dropped the following mail to him to give him some feedback and encouragement:

Subj: Thanks for the... well... everything
Date: 10/11/2003 13:38:00 GMT Standard Time
From: PAULS0069
To: spamers-should-be@burned-as-witches.com

Hi Dave, I hope you're well

Firstly, I wish to withdraw my previous attacks on your ticket prices. As you rightly said, given what you've been through in the name of my entertainment, it was well worth my £16.50. I consider myself shamed.

Nextly, my friends and I really enjoyed the show on Saturday night (reading your news page I'm glad I wasn't there on the Friday, they don't sound like my sort of crowd) and I appreciated you taking the time to say hello and signing my battered old copy of AYDG? afterwards. I'm flattered that you remembered me. It was the bald head, right?

Thirdly, I hope you're looking after your voice. It didn't affect my enjoyment of the show, but I can see two-an-a-bit hours of talking and shouting a night are taking their toll. If you're not already doing so, I urge you to warm it up properly before you go on.

Lastly, the very best of luck with the rest of the tour. You're past half way and it's all down hill for here. Oh, and 'pterodactyl / shelta'. It's a secret language based on Gaelic, used by some travelling people in Ireland and Britain. The things you can learn from books eh?

Paul Smith

P.S. Try www.yell.co.uk for [removed to protect Dave's 'little secret'] in your local area.

Those were my thoughts. This is what Dave himself had to say about his trip to Aylesbury on his web site:
NOVEMBER 9TH 2003
Two very different shows in Aylesbury. The Friday night show was probably the worst one of the tour so far. I don't know if it was me or the audience or ... or anything else, but there were so many things that usually elicit gales of laughter that were getting a smattering, if that. If you were in that audience and I wasn't on form; my apologies. Unless you were the idiot with the video-camera, in which case; please report to teacher. The Saturday night show was a complete contrast, with an audience not only laughing, but ooh-ing and ah-ing along with the story and seeming to latch on to everything. Quite odd. We're just about half way through the tour now - 36 gigs down, 37 to go - and I'm still having fun. This is an odd week because we actually have two days off - one after Exeter and another after Yeovil. But then we hit the longest run of shows - 20 in 19 days!
I'll speedily point out that I was an ooh-er and ah-er on the Saturday, not a git with a videocamera on the Friday.

Dave looks like this. Don't hold it against him. This image pinched from his web site. Click here to visit www.davegorman.com... And steal something for yourselves. • w w w . D a v e G o r m a n . c o m is the place for updates on Dave's latest adventures. And he is the sort of man who has adventures. As Shakespeare might have put it, "Some are born adventurous, some become adventurous, and others have adventurous thrust upon them via a bottle of tequila and a startling lack of self control.

• Click here for my Web-Cam page, complete with an idea ripped-off of Dave's site.

• You've read about a book and docu-comedian I like. Click here to hear about a film I like.

• Click here to read a poem I like about the last great mystery of the 19th century.

Finally, my thanks must go to Dave Gorman himself. A man without whom this page would be all about a figment of my imagination, and that would be a bad thing.
A very bad thing indeed.

Now, the cynical bit tacked on at the end. I'd like more hits on my web site. This page looks to be a good spot to place a small trapette for fellow DG fans. To that end, here is a list of googlewhacks you may have searched for which are referenced in his brilliant book, Dave Gorman's Googlewhack! Adventure. If you don't already own a copy, Bad girl, go to your beanbag... And visit Amazon at once to order yourself one. If you're in the UK, you could also try eBay.
On with the list: francophile namesakes dork turnspit unconstructive superegos unicyclist periscopes coelacanth sharpener ammonite googolplex rarebit nutters bushranger doublespeak bibliphillic sandwiched dripstone ingles hippocampi wallpaper verandahs plectrums psychosomatic rambunctiousness pomegranate filibusters hydroids souvlaki acehigh lawnmowers grandmaster sticklebacks optically scriveners baptise slurry yoyo triptychs langur dandelions languars nasturtium paeans uppercuts candyfloss draughtsmen spendthrift glaswegians trimarans crimps trimaran scrimps dauphin gormandise laser pedestrianize bamboozled panfish alligator peristyles jeremids conifer dingdong larvas. Sorry about that, but it had to be done.

Legal notice - This page, inc. graphics and multimedia features are the intellectual property of Paul Smith -except for those which I've blatantly ripped off of other peoples sites, which aren't- and are protected by copyright. Ahem. Last updated 11/02/04.